(Hot Springs is also the boyhood home of former president Bill Clinton.) Today, events like the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, the St. (An underground stone arch aquifer does, in fact, run beneath the city’s historic downtown, which was a haven for organized crime until the 1960s.) In addition to mobsters like Al Capone, the “Spa City” welcomed other notable (and much more reputable) figures – entertainers like Duke Ellington and Frank Sinatra, ballplayers like Babe Ruth and presidents Harry Truman and Franklin D. Its past as an elegant spa town with a seedy underbelly reads a bit like a crime-noir comic book, replete with tales of notorious gangsters escaping through underground tunnels. A fun-loving mountain town, Hot Springs flows with thermal spring water. Patrick’s Day Parade and the World Championship Running of the Tubs, which celebrates the city’s history as a bathing Mecca. Visit Hot Springs also produces several other popular events like the World’s Shortest St. Spa-Con is presented by Visit Hot Springs who collaborate with several community partners such as Mid-America Science Museum, National Park College, The Galaxy Connection Star Wars Museum and Alliance Rubber. “They have good guests and a good variety of stuff that they do,” Harris added. Strange” cosplay which utilizes a holographic projector to create some mesmerizing special effects. Over the last few years, he has attended Spa-Con as both a spectator and as a special guest. who cosplays at comic-cons all across the country. “If you’re going to just go to one con all year, that’s the one to go to,” said Gregory Harris, an attorney from Little Rock, Ark. In its relatively short life span, the event has packed a big Ka-pow! with celebrities from “Star Trek,” “Twin Peaks,” “Battlestar Galactica,” and “Stranger Things.”
A three-day, family-friendly event, Spa-Con is held each September at the Hot Springs Convention Center with panels, workshops, cosplay contests, video games, vendor booths, celebrity guests and thousands of costumed attendees. While other conventions vie to be the biggest (attracting upwards of 200,000 attendees), Spa-Con just might be the chillest with big names, manageable crowds, and a laid back location.
(Short for “costume play,” cosplay is the act of dressing up as and taking on the persona of fictional characters.) These multi-media extravaganzas celebrate a love of science-fiction, fantasy, anime, video games, role playing games, and cosplay. While comic books are at the heart of it, many cons throughout the country embrace a wide variety of platforms and genres – events like Comic-Con International in San Diego, Cali., the New York Comic Con, and the up-and-coming Spa-Con in Hot Springs, Ark. (She was even a pint-sized replica of the “Dark Lord” for Halloween one year.) And that is what drives events like these - fandom.Ĭomic book conventions (or “comic-cons,” for short) are fueled by a fervor for pop culture entertainment, attracting thousands of fans who come from all walks of life. On that day, she became a “Star Wars” diehard and has been devouring the 40-plus-year-old franchise ever since. My three-year-old daughter approached him with equal parts curiosity and caution, feeling extra brave in her Batgirl pajamas. Every species of every imagined universe or alternate reality seemed to be here… and everyone was getting along.Įven Darth Vader was nice, posing for pictures with fans.